Resistance band exercises, by tension

Elastic resistance rises with elongation. A dumbbell is hardest where the lever is longest, usually somewhere in the middle of the range; a band is hardest at the end, where it is stretched furthest. That makes bands very good at the outer range — the last twenty degrees of shoulder external rotation, the top of a scapular retraction — and mediocre at loading the inner range where many patients are weakest.

Two practical consequences. Anchor height changes the exercise more than band colour does. And a band that feels easy at the start and brutal at the end is not defective; that is the tool working as designed.

Band colours are a manufacturer’s convention. One brand’s green sits between another’s red and blue. There is no cross-brand tension standard, so a handout that says “green band” and nothing else is an instruction the patient cannot follow in a different shop.

Progress in this order: range, then repetitions, then tension. Jumping a band colour before the movement is clean simply moves the compensation somewhere you cannot see.

Four numbers per exercise: sets, reps, hold, and an effort target. The effort target is what makes the sheet self-correcting on a bad day — a patient at RPE 13 does less when they are tired without needing permission.

The programme that gets done is short, specific, and on the fridge.

The home programme builder prints exactly that, with the tension bar and the word beside it. Keep it to four movements; adherence collapses past about fifteen minutes.